Frank Lautenberg is 88 years old now, ripe enough to finally admit he doesn’t do push-ups anymore.

But the U.S. senator found himself in full combat mode last week as the bullets came flying from every direction.

Gov. Chris Christie called him a “hack” and said he should resign from politics. Senate President Steve Sweeney called him “bizarre” and “vengeful.”

And George Norcross, who built a political empire by raising money from firms with no-bid government contracts, blasted Lautenberg for raising money from firms with no-bid government contracts. Go figure.

“I was astonished by it,” Lautenberg says. “I don’t know what elicited this anger, this hatred.”

With the rage directed at him, you might think that Lautenberg had done something really awful.

But you would be wrong. What he did was dare to ask a few questions about the latest back-room deal struck by the powers in Trenton — the plan to let Rowan University absorb the Camden campus of Rutgers University.

The merger is a big deal, and the governor wants to charge ahead and make it happen by July 1, possibly by executive order.

The problem is the proposal remains half-baked. It was hatched in secret and presented as a fait accompli, even though big questions remain unanswered. Lautenberg’s crime was his attempt to pry open the door and get some answers.

Aaron Houston/For The Star-LedgerSenate President Stephen Sweeney

No one has a clue, for example, how much it will cost. Or what impact it might have on tuition. Or even whether it’s true that the merged school will draw more federal research grants, the core idea behind the merger.

So Lautenberg wrote the governor a letter in February asking for answers. And the governor snubbed him by not answering.

He next wrote to Arne Duncan, the U.S. Secretary of Education, and asked him to get some answers.

“I went to the top guy in education,” Lautenberg says. “This should not be a political game.”

And that’s exactly what it became when this debate sunk into Snooki territory last week.

To dissect how it happened, start with the titanic egos of all these guys, including Lautenberg. They all see themselves as alpha dogs. And like high school jocks in a locker room, they like to whip towels at each other to establish rankings.

So when Lautenberg wrote to Duncan, he hinted that the merger was a scheme to benefit “powerful political interests” and then copied U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman, the chief federal prosecutor in this region.

“To suggest there was something illegal and improper is way over the line,” Norcross says. “He is a bitter and angry man.”

Sweeney, a childhood friend who could not be separated from Norcross with a crowbar, also was furious.

“That bothered me,” Sweeney said. “That’s just a cheap political shot. He’s never gotten over the Andrews thing.”

The Andrews thing, another layer of this drama, refers to U.S. Rep. Rob Andrews, who challenged Lautenberg in the 2008 Senate primary with help from Norcross and Sweeney.

And speaking of ego, Sweeney says he is miffed that Lautenberg didn’t call him directly with the questions. “I mean, come on, we’re all Democrats,” Sweeney says.

The governor, who is notoriously thin-skinned, never speaks to Lautenberg, thanks to their fight over the Hudson River tunnel project, which Christie killed.

“When he had a meeting with the (congressional) delegation in Washington, I asked him if he forgot my phone number,” Lautenberg says.

Okay, so these guys hate each other and they spent the week snapping towels. Who cares?

The bad news is that we all should. Because New Jersey’s public colleges and universities are in crisis. They are overcrowded and shabby, and even the good ones are not great. We rank near the bottom of the country in state financing for higher education and it shows. High-tech companies are leaving to form partnerships with research universities in other states.

So when it comes to higher education policy, a back-room deal is just not good enough. We all should be rooting for Lautenberg to get his answers. And it’s comforting to know that despite his age, the man is still fighting.